I love the '90s

[shunn]

A few weeks back, for no reason but avoiding work, I assembled a list of the 100 best albums of the '90s. Okay, maybe not the best, but my favorites anyway, the ones that I seem to have listened to most obsessively over the years. In an effort to avoid more work, I will now share the list with you.

I limited myself to one album per artist (although Medeski Martin + Wood kind of slipped in there twice through a loophole), and I allowed myself only studio albums, nothing live and no compilations (the exception there being The Beta Band's Three E.P.'s). For each year, I have bolded my top choice, though in many cases it was a very close call.





1990

• Question and Answer, Pat Metheny w/Dave Holland & Roy Haynes
  
• Missing ... Presumed Having a Good Time, The Notting Hillbillies
  
• Fear of a Black Planet, Public Enemy
  
• The Rhythm of the Saints, Paul Simon
  
• Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, The Sundays

1991

• Little Earthquakes, Tori Amos
  
• Travelers & Thieves, Blues Traveler
  
• Laughter & Lust, Joe Jackson
  
• Mental Jewelry, Live
  
• Ten, Pearl Jam
  
• Roll the Bones, Rush
  
• Pocket Full of Kryptonite, Spin Doctors
  
• Achtung Baby, U2

1992

• 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of..., Arrested Development
  
• Gordon, Barenaked Ladies
  
• Return of the Brecker Brothers, The Brecker Brothers
  
• Black Eyed Man, Cowboy Junkies
  
• Hypocrisy Is the Greatest Luxury, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
  
• Automatic for the People, R.E.M.
  
• 99.9 F°, Suzanne Vega

1993

• Kamakiriad, Donald Fagen
  
• Love & Liberté, Gipsy Kings
  
• Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, Sarah McLachlan
  
• Siamese Dream, The Smashing Pumpkins
  
• Ten Summoner's Tales, Sting
  
• Elemental, Tears for Fears

1994

• The Sweetest Illusion, Basia
  
• 11 Tracks of Whack, Walter Becker
  
• Boingo
  
• Grace, Jeff Buckley
  
• She, Harry Connick, Jr.
  
• Dis Is da Drum, Herbie Hancock
  
• Under the Table and Dreaming, Dave Matthews Band
  
• Dummy, Portishead
  
• MoodSwing, Joshua Redman Quartet
  
• Ruby Vroom, Soul Coughing
  
• Home, Spearhead
  
• Chocolate & Cheese, Ween
  
• Sleeps with Angels, Neil Young & Crazy Horse

1995

• Post, Björk
  
• Friday Afternoon in the Universe, Medeski Martin + Wood
  
• Tragic Kingdom, No Doubt
  
• Hello, Poe
  
• 311
  
• Secaucus, The Wrens

1996

• Odelay, Beck
  
• If You're Feeling Sinister, Belle and Sebastian
  
• Fashion Nugget, Cake
  
• Unchained, Johnny Cash
  
• This Fire, Paula Cole
  
• A Few Small Repairs, Shawn Colvin
  
• Walking Wounded, Everything but the Girl
  
• We the People, Groove Collective
  
• Mic City Sons, Heatmiser
  
• Colossal Head, Los Lobos
  
• Fever In Fever Out, Luscious Jackson
  
• Who Can You Trust?, Morcheeba
  
• Dusk at Cubist Castle, The Olivia Tremor Control
  
• Archaeology, The Rutles
  
• Duncan Sheik, Duncan Sheik
  
• Hot, Squirrel Nut Zippers

1997

• Earthling, David Bowie
  
• Cheap Trick [1997]
  
• Let Us Play!, Coldcut
  
• When I Was Born for the 7th Time, Cornershop
  
• Whatever and Ever Amen, Ben Folds Five
  
• Yeah, It's That Easy, G. Love and Special Sauce
  
• Marcy Playground
  
• You Will Go to the Moon, Moxy Früvous
  
• Happy End of the World, Pizzicato Five
  
• OK Computer, Radiohead
  
• Dig Me Out, Sleater-Kinney

1998

• Moon Safari, Air
  
• The Way We Were, Babe the Blue Ox
  
• Hello Nasty, Beastie Boys
  
• Fantasma, Cornelius
  
• Painted from Memory, Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach
  
• You've Come a Long Way, Baby, Fatboy Slim
  
• 4-Sight
  
• Mini-King [unreleased]
  
• Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too, New Radicals
  
• Aquemini, OutKast
  
• A Go Go, John Scofield (w/Medeski Martin + Wood)
  
• XO, Elliott Smith
  
• Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Lucinda Williams

1999

• When the Pawn..., Fiona Apple
  
• The Three E.P.'s, The Beta Band*
  
• Stereo Type A, Cibo Matto
  
• Emergency & I, The Dismemberment Plan
  
• The Slim Shady LP, Eminem
  
• Utopia Parkway, Fountains of Wayne
  
• Liquid Skin, Gomez
  
• On How Life Is, Macy Gray
  
• Next Move, Hue and Cry
  
• Bachelor No. 2; or, The Last Remains of the Dodo, Aimee Mann
  
• Play, Moby
  
• The Time Machine, Alan Parsons
  
• Californication, Red Hot Chili Peppers
  
• Summer Teeth, Wilco
  
• Apple Venus Volume 1, XTC

[One album there that deserves further explanation is 1998's Mini-King, which is an album that as far as I know existed only in advance promo form. It was to be released by N2K Encoded Music, the record label of a company I used to work for, but as far as I know was never released. (The company folded.) That was a big shame, because Mini-King had a lot of talent, not to mention an ultra-sexy (male) lead singer. People would say, "What does Mini-King sound like," and I would say, "Spandau Ballet," and my boss would say, "Don't say that! They'll tank if you say that!" Well, I guess they worse than tanked.]

So, can I be a talking head on VH1 now? Huh? Huh? Do I qualify?

Comments

[lunchboy.livejournal.com]

Now I want to hear some Mini-King.

[shunn.livejournal.com]

I'll zip some up for you.

Maxi-King

[shunn.livejournal.com]

A bunch of us took a field trip from work once, to see Mini-King open for the Cardigans, I think at Roseland. Most of us were straight guys, but we all agreed we would do the lead singer.

[scottjanssens.livejournal.com]

Ten Summoner's Tales over Soul Cages?

Yes, I know it's your favorites, but c'mon. :)

[shunn.livejournal.com]

I love about half of The Soul Cages, and those songs I love a lot. But the other half bore me to tears. Sorry.

I think Ten Summoner's Tales, while the individual songs may not match the best of Soul Cages, is a far more consistent and consistently enjoyable pop album. The only song I hate on it is "Fields of Gold."

[steelbrassnwood.livejournal.com]

My head is too full of acoustic flatpicking to really process this, but what amazes me is that I consider you and me to be pretty compatible musically, yet I agree with very few of your choices! I love the Beasties, but not more than I love Car Wheels On a Gravel Road, for instance.

But Odelay, oh yes. That summer I discovered Beck and G. Love in the same weekend.

[shunn.livejournal.com]

Like I said, there were some close calls, and Hello Nasty vs. Car Wheels was one of them.

Other albums that came damn close in their years were The Rhythm of the Saints, Little Earthquakes, Achtung Baby, Automatic for the People, Dummy, Ruby Vroom, Post, If You're Feeling Sinister, Fashion Nugget, Dig Me Out, Next Move, Apple Venus Volume 1, Liquid Skin, Bachelor No. 2, The Slim Shady LP, When the Pawn..., and The Three E.P.'s. 1999 was a tough year!

[steelbrassnwood.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there were, and I bet the list would come out somewhat differently if you did it again next week. I guess I'm also much less connected to popular music than I used to be; many of these albums passed me by completely and others I don't associate with a given year because it took me years to buy them. (I didn't get Play, for instance, until after 18 came out.) My vote from the 1999 list probably would have been the XTC album, which I did buy as soon as it came out and listened to constantly.

I just went through the whole list. Of all of them, there's only a dozen that I bought the year the album came out. Am I getting old?

[shunn.livejournal.com]

Not at all. I haven't worked it out exactly, but I would be surprised if I bought even half these albums the year they came out myself.

I've done some second-guessing since posting the list. How, for instance, could I have overlooked the Dire Straits album On Every Street? I did buy that one immediately, and played it constantly....

[shunn.livejournal.com]

All day long yesterday, I kept thinking, "How could I have left Powertrip by Monster Magnet off the list?! How could I have overlooked Pulp's Different Class?!"

My list would be different redone already.

1998: Another tough year

[shunn.livejournal.com]

Oops, forgot to mention my other 1998 contenders: Moon Safari, The Way We Were, Fantasma, Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too, Aquemini, A Go Go, and XO.

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

What, no Garbage?

[shunn.livejournal.com]

Wags might make the case that my entire list is garbage, but—

Oh, I see!

I like Shirley and the boys, loved it when they opened for U2 at MSG, but I've never been the obsessive Garbage listener that I have been with the albums on the list.

[gregvaneekhout.livejournal.com]

Not a Nirvana fan?

[shunn.livejournal.com]

I admire the hell out of Nirvana, but I have to say I never got into the whole of Nevermind like I did Ten. Somehow, I don't end up going back to Nevermind very often, unlike the other albums on the list.

[gregvaneekhout.livejournal.com]

I think Nevermind was important (in the sense that places like Rolling Stone use the word "important"), but the Nirvana album thats remains a constant in my rotation is MTV Unplugged in New York. I could listen to that one once a day. In fact, there've been months that I have.

And, of course, nice to see Roll the Bones on your list. If I had to choose one of their albums from the 90's, I think I'd go with Test For Echo.

[steelbrassnwood.livejournal.com]

Oh, good call. I got into Nirvana late, and that album was what convinced me. Most of the songs sound better (to me) acoustically, and hearing him cover Leadbelly and David Bowie really endeared him to me. I've since gotten all of their other albums but that one remains my favorite.

[shunn.livejournal.com]

(http://www.shunn.net/music/index.cgi?q=l&f=a&i=1241) You know, the Unplugged album is one I haven't listened to much, not sure why. My wife loves it. I must start rectifying that today.

Test for Echo is great, and it's probably more consistent than Roll the Bones, but the songs I love on RtB I just can't get enough of. Also, RtB has probably the second best cover in the Rush catalog—next, of course, to my icon here.

[syz.livejournal.com]

I don't think anything on Test for Echo can match the one-two punch opener of "Dreamline"/"Bravado" on Roll the Bones.

[gregvaneekhout.livejournal.com]

I *love* "Bravado." And "The Big Wheel." And "Ghost of a Chance."

On the other hand, I also love "Totem" and "Resist" and "Carve Away the Stone."

Tough call, tough call ...

[shunn.livejournal.com]

"Ghost of a Chance"! One of my very favorite all-time Rush tracks. Man.

Norse God Greg

[shunn.livejournal.com]

You love "Totem" because it mentions Valhalla!

Re: Norse God Greg

[gregvaneekhout.livejournal.com]

Well ... yeah!

New album expected late spring/early summer, rumored to be called Snakes and Ladders. They recorded it in five weeks, which is their shortest time cutting an album since Farewell to Kings!

Re: Norse God Greg

[shunn.livejournal.com]

Huzzah! Best news I've heard today!